Weekend Update: Simple Pleasures of Everyday Life

"Simple pleasures are always the last refuge of the complex. " - Oscar Wilde

The simple pleasures of everyday life filled our past weekend.

Friday night we enjoyed dinner and margaritas (Fi stuck to milk in a sippy cup) at our favorite cheap Mexican restaurant. We dined on the patio next to another couple and their 3-year old daughter Naomi. Fiona and Naomi immediately connected in that way that all little kids seem to do: I know you! You are my species! Let me stare at you and touch your face and pull your hair! Similarly, we quickly got to chatting with her parents: the pros and cons of various neighborhood parks, our kids matching farmer’s market t-shirts, sleeping.

Throughout this first year of parenthood, I’ve learned that having a child is a golden ticket into this secret club I never before knew existed. Immediately, I can connect with any parent, anywhere, anytime.

As has become our regular habit, we started Saturday morning with a walk to the Durham Farmer’s Market. Fiona’s first trip to the farmer’s market was at 2 weeks old. We enjoy the exercise and planning menus around whatever looks yummy - and Fiona loves the colors, other kids, and attention from strangers. This week’s bounty: zucchini for muffins later this week, tomatoes and fresh multi-grain bread for summer sandwiches & blueberries, just because.

After the market, we continued our urban hike through downtown with a stop for brunch at Parker & Otis before heading home. Later that afternoon we traveled to Raleigh to celebrate our friend Thomas Tripp’s first birthday – and to toast his parents Lora & Andrew on their successful first year as parents!

One of our goals for the weekend had been to keep Fiona entertained and engaged enough each day to stay awake until 11:30 am. Because she’s a few weeks away from transitioning to the toddler room at her school, we’ve been experimenting with one nap a day. Once again, just when I feel like we get something down – bottles, solid food, finger food – it changes!  Saturday, the experiment was a grand success: Fiona was a happy, happy girl all morning, napped for 2.5 hours midday, and was the bell of the ball at our afternoon party. Sunday, not so much: Short midday nap meant that girlfriend spent some time in meltdown city and ended up going back down later in the day.

Sunday morning, I enjoyed a blissful solo 5- mile run in unseasonably cool weather at Duke’s cross-country course and then spent much of the rest of the day in life maintenance mode: groceries, cleaning, and – the latest – childproofing every corner of our house.

Let me out of this cage Mom!

The best parts of the day (other, of course, than the deep Type A satisfaction I felt after dropping off a huge load of clutter at Goodwill!), were my afternoon walk with Fiona around the neighborhood and dinner on the porch with Ryan by candlelight to close out the weekend.

Ryan's "Deconstructed Tuna & Avocado Roll"

It’s Monday evening as I write this, and I’ve spent the day at Duke’s Center for Living having minor surgery to remove  basal cell carcinoma from forehead. After spending the day amid clinics and insurance and prescriptions and pain medication and  forms and stitches and waiting and ever-present fluorescent lights, I’m grateful that this isn’t the stuff of my everyday life. 

Instead, it's filled with simple pleasures like this: